Take My Yoke By Chris Ulrich Sunday, January 11 th, 2015

Transcription

1 Take My Yoke By Chris Ulrich Sunday, January 11 th, 2015 Remain standing. Bob, if you could lead us in prayer for the message? Bob: Please bow your heads. Lord Jesus, anoint our brother, dear God, and speak Your words through him, dear Jesus. And, God, us in the congregation, let us receive Your word, Lord God, and apply it to our lives today, Lord God. Let today be a memorial for You, Lord Jesus, that you ve done something for us in our lives today. God, I pray that today that we would remember this message at this time, God. I ask this in Your name; in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Thank you, Bob. You may be seated. It s good to see everybody out this morning, and I know I talk about the weather probably a little bit too much, but, you know, this past week was a little bit rough. Some reminders of last year and just living in the Great Lakes area, I suppose. I don t even work outside; I actually work indoors, but my heart goes out to all of you that do spend your time outdoors. But, I ve got to say, this morning I actually heard some birds chirping out my window, and, Sonya, I know you ve mentioned that before. It was great to hear. I don t know if anybody else heard it, but I heard it, and I was surprised. I was like, Boy, I think I was forgetting what that sounds like. It was good to hear. I m going to just jump right into it this morning. I m going to ask everyone who s got their Bible to turn with me to Matthew. I know this is personally one of my favorite verses. It takes me back to a time when I was born again. This just helps to create in me, and renew a clean heart. That s something that we have to have. Those early years are called the formative years, when we re young in the faith; molding, shaping, building a foundation that s designed to last. But, in Matthew, Jesus speaking: Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. I ve shared this before and can t say that it s what would be described as a really dynamic story or knock it out of the park or life changing event, but I m going to share it anyway: this was shortly after I was baptized, and I remember visiting from family in Delaware, coming up from Virginia, and if was just a billboard in Delaware on US Route 13. I suppose in a lot places around the country, maybe a little more down south, you see these kind of billboards, and they re sponsored by Christian groups in the area, but it was just, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. It was one of those kind of snapshots in time that kind of sticks with you. I was new in the faith. It was one of those things where Ozzie, you got baptized about a week and a half ago, but it s one of those things where it s a life-changing event. I mean, seeing you come up out of that water, it was one of those things where it's like, it was great to see, because it takes us back to remind us of what our purpose is, to remind us of what we re here for. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Our theme for this month is: John 5:11 walk. He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and

2 That s something that we have a new walk; we have a life in God where we do have a purpose. I m not saying that we don t still deal with the world; we re going to get into that later. My first point today is that Jesus wants us to take His yoke and learn of him. There s a couple ways of looking at that initial request which is what it is, it is a request, because Jesus said, I stand at the door and knock; if any man will listen, I will come in, and I will sup with him, (Revelation 3:20) but God s not going to force His ways upon us; He s not going to force Himself upon us. There s plenty of people just look around. The Bible says strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14), but broad is the gate and wide is the way that leadeth unto destruction (Matthew 7:13). These are things that we learn as time goes by. This is part of learning of God. It s one of those things where there might be some folks that think that s a pretty easy thing to do. Where do I sign up? Sure, I can learn about Jesus. Others might think that it s too much of a challenge, and there s too much to give up and would tend to shy away. Then there s others that might not want anything to do with it and they might come up with reasons, or excuses, or explanations, Well, I was raised this way. But where do we stand today? But, how many really want to be like Jesus? I m not looking for anybody to jump up or stand up or raise their hand, but that s what s known as a game-changer. It s what separates the men from the boys or the women from the girls, but the truth is there are adults and there are youth that have a walk with God, so, in that context, maybe that s a little bit of an out-of-context saying. I appreciated what you shared, Luzy, about, you know, just having fun, because there s things, I think, a lot of times, people look to be so stifled religiously. It s like, Oh, I can t do anything, or, I have a lot more that I have to give, and that s not the case. There is such a thing as good, clean fun. I appreciated what you shared, Kirk, about remembering thy Creator in the days of thy youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1). That s scripturally based, too. That s the kind of thing that we have to kind of look at it like I remember about twenty-five years ago, just driving back from work, and that was a scripture that God really dealt with me about, and it was the kind of thing where it was like, you know what? that s where you build that foundation; that s where you have those formative years. Also, it separates those who are serious from those who maybe want to get some blessings, but don t want to make any kind of a commitment, don t want be held accountable for anything. The truth of the matter is, we re still going to stand before God whether we want to or not. That s just something that I think there s plenty of people out there that I know that it s become more and more atheistic out there. People, I think, just flat out want to the Bible talks about, they ve seared their conscience with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). It s the kind of thing where people are just thinking, Well, I just want to put it out of my mind. I know Jesse shared something recently where somebody was talking, I just want to put it out of my mind. I don t want to think about it. I don t want to think about the reality in God. I remember, years ago, and I think a lot of us remember this, we had a radio program called, Steps to Reality. The funny thing is, before becoming a Christian, I used to think, Well, the reality is whatever we see, it has nothing to do with God. It s all just fictitious, or make-believe, or whatever you want to say, but that s not the truth at all, because God deals with us in such ways that are unforgettable and undeniable. Yes, God is an invisible God. I think sometimes people are waiting for Him to just plop down, and say, Yes, okay, I m here; I m real, and it s not going to happen like that, because it already did. That was Jesus Christ. And one more thing along those lines is, if people are thinking, Well, what would have been like if I had lived back then? The same way as today, because we have to Holy Ghost. We have that Holy Spirit guiding us. Here s another thing: When you think about the country of Israel, which is where Christ s ministry was, it wasn t a lot of geographical land. It wasn t like He walked the entire earth and spoke to everybody. He spent His life pretty much seeking for the lost sheep of Israel. So think about this: All these other people that were from all these other countries, including the wise men, they were from lands that were afar off. I would have to imagine that most people, when you think about it logically, didn t even come into contact with Christ at all. That s just a fact. But, I know that, if people, they think, Well, I don t want to have a walk with God. It s a pretty cut and dried thing, and I

3 know there are gray areas in life, and we don t always know in advance exactly what we re going to say or what we re going to do. Christ Himself talked about, I will give you the words to speak in that selfsame hour. (Matthew 10:19) So, it s not as though we have to just plan everything out. Okay, if they say this You know, it s like going into an interview. How many s gone into an interview, and they sort of prep you for what questions to expect, If they say this, say that. If they say that, then say this. What was the time where you felt like you didn t come through? It s just, how much more difficult, or how much do they want to knock you off your high horse, could you possible get? And, if you don t get it, you re thinking it s a conspiracy. I knew going in they knew who they wanted to hire, so it s like, arrrgh, I ve just got to deal with it. But all God is asking us to do is take His yoke upon us. I m not as far as a yoke, it s something I m going to talk about a little bit later. I want to tie in last week s message, because God wants to give us new and great things every day and that was one of the highlights of the service. Parrish talked about how God gives us incentives but we have responsibility to look for blessings sometimes and overcome adversity through fasting and prayer. Then he described it like getting in the boxing ring. How many s ever gotten into a boxing ring? I ve wrestled a little bit, but I ve never actually gotten in the boxing ring. It s one of those things where they re going to pummel you, or you re going to pummel them, or, probably, a lot of both. So, the truth is, without a fight, there isn t a victory. So, we have to look at it like, the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against wickedness, against the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12). So, it s not like we just walk through this life and there s no adversary whatsoever. There is no doubt about Satan; the Bible talks in the Book of Job about how he walks to and fro in the earth and up and down in it. It s all spiritual, so it s not like Satan obviously is going to work through different people, but we certainly don t want him working through us. That s where we resist the devil, and draw nigh to God, and He ll draw nigh to us (James 4:7-8). Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So the point here is that the yoke and burden that Jesus gives us is not talking about making it easy on our flesh, but easy on our souls. That s another thing where we have to look at it like, okay, if we want it easy in the flesh, then we ve come to the wrong place. I m not saying that there aren t going to be times of comfort, and you get some rest, take a vacation, or you have a fun time bowling, or, snowmobiling, or whatever else you like to do. But, I mean, that s got to be balanced, too. That s got to be kept in perspective, too. There is absolutely a difference between the flesh and the spirit. The Bible talks in 1 John 4:4, Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So, there is a soul, and there is the flesh. It s a matter of looking at it like, okay, which are we going to please? Who are we going to yield ourselves to? James 1:22-25 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. The second point today is that the yoke we carry is a burden not a chore and there s a big difference there. I don t plan on going through the whole list of all the chores we all have to deal with, and I suppose to most of us chores are kind of a never ending duty. Clean this, cook that, fix this, break that, and then fix what you just broke. Cook it again, clean that again, dust this... I mean, it s on and on and on, grocery shop, whatever it happens to be. The list of chores for a lifetime, it s just an on-going thing. It s going to be that way until we hire a housekeeper or our own personal fix-it guy, which I don t see for myself on the horizon any time soon. I mean, we didn t have any maids in our house growing up, so we just had to clean as we went, fix it as you went. There were times when we get something that was little more than our abilities would allow; you know, we d get somebody like a carpenter. We had to rebuild our house; I ve told that story before, about the fire that we had. But, in a lot of ways chores are

4 thankless tasks, but carrying a burden for the Lord can bring us immense satisfaction. That is a clear-cut separation. It s part of being a doer of the word and not a hearer only (James 1:22). So what exactly is the burden of the Lord? I heard it put this way one time by one of the pastors in our ministry, Get saved, stay saved, and see other souls saved. In a lot of ways, I know that our church creed is to evangelize, educate, and equip, but, I suppose in a lot of ways, Get saved, stay saved, and see other souls saved, that s a close second. Because, if you think about that, that something that s been ongoing, that s something that we instill on ourselves, because, we look at it like, you know what? We can t force it on anybody, but we have to be convinced in our own lives. The Bible talks about being fully persuaded in our own minds. So, it s not a matter of like, yes, we could be Christ even talked about to be compelling, but it s not like we re pushy about it. If somebody doesn t want to live it, okay, I mean, try to explain, okay, this is what the benefits are; the Bible talks about He daily loadeth us with benefits (Psalms 68:19). To me, that s tremendous, because that s what life s all about. I can t think about what it would be like to go through life for even a second more without the leading and without the power of God, having tasted of the heavenly gift, which God gives us. That s been a long time. I just don t want to miss out for my own soul s sake. I know God, He loves us more than we love ourselves, and sometimes that s, that s something that we ve got to acknowledge and accept that, but it s also looking at it like, you know what? God s got our back. God s looking out for our best interests, and there s times God s going to deal with us, whether it s through fellowship, a dream, reading, whatever interaction we have that He s going to give us that direction, give us that guidance, give us that burden. I want to say that sometimes we don t want to have to rely on people and I think we all can relate to that. I m going to expound on that. We don t want to have high expectations of others thinking that we might get disappointed, and I get that, too. We don t want to have to bear the load of someone else that we think isn t carrying their own weight and I think we all get that as well. After all, Galatians 6:5 says that every man shall bear his own burden, so if we cover ourselves then we ve covered all the bases, right? But, as unfortunate as it may sound we ve all seen people come and go and so did Jesus. So, we think about it from this vantage point that, you know, maybe we had to carry somebody, and it just seems like they re not pitching in and making an effort, and it s like, you know, you bend over backwards for people as the expression goes, and eventually it s, Well, no, I ll go do something else, and it s like you spent all that time and energy, and sometimes it feels like it was a waste of time. But what about those times we re at our wits end or of our own abilities and we have to rely on someone else? I had that happen just this week. I ve had that happen many times in my life. And then it s like, when you re in a predicament like that, then you re kind of thinking about it a little bit differently about, Okay, what am I going to be like when somebody asks, Hey, can you help with this? Could you take care of this? Could you take care of that? It does kind of make us think about it differently in the sense that we do have to rely on each other. Again, I stress that, because it s like, if we build walls around, it s like, Oh, I ve got all my bills paid, I ve got this working, and I ve got this job, I ve got my retirement coming in, and I ve got everything you kind of back yourself into a corner, eventually, and it s like then we re looking at it like how isolated do we want to make ourselves? I m not talking about being people s floor-mat. I m not talking about thinking that we can do everything for everybody, all the time, which is not the case, but we can certainly do something some of the time. We can all do something, so, there is a difference there. So it s not about doing chores, and just checking off the box. A burden is really about souls more than anything else, and that has nothing to do with checking off the box. Jesus said that people would know that we are His disciples by our love one toward another. And by the way, that same chapter, Galatians six, says in verse two to bear one another s burdens so God does have an expectation of us for each other. Again, that s not meant to take advantage of someone s good nature, but, again, we can all do something. We can all make his work. I know, this is something that God has dealt with me quite a bit, it s not a glamorous ministry, it s not a glamorous lifestyle, it s not a glamorous Bible; it s just not! We re not in a glamorous building. I mean, it s not like rolling in the dough; we re not all billionaires. I

5 mean, that s just honest-to-god fact, but, you know what? I ve heard our bishop, Pastor Paine, share this numerous times: There s no other people that I d rather be associated with tan the people in this ministry. I ve got say, you know, I remember him saying that years and years ago, and I thought, That s great! That s nice of him to say that! But, then it took a while, and I m not saying I ever was against it but it took a while to take it personally and think, You know what? I feel that way. I really do. There s no other people that I d trust more. I m talking about when my life is on the line, or the chips are down, or your back s against the wall, or whatever you want to put; any kind of predicament, or scenario, or challenge that we face in life. The third point today is that Jesus makes us whole and He doesn t want us to sit down, but to walk in purpose. That ties in well with being doers of the word and not hearers only. God has a plan for our lives that is great but it s not designed to wear us out. I want to reiterate how that Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Do I think we make it more difficult on ourselves at times? Yes. And to make it a little more personal, do I think I make it more difficult on myself at times? Absolutely! But anything in life that has value is going to take some effort and that was another take-away from last week that looking for and getting blessings is sometimes work, and it takes an effort. You know, we put ourselves in the firing line of receiving a blessing by having faith, by having holiness, by getting fellowship, by having a balanced life in God that s an on-going thing, that s having a plan to stay saved. Not looking at it like it s a one-time experience, or, eventually, something else better is going to come along. I m here to say that there s nothing else better that s going to come along. I don t care how flashy it is; I don t care how great it looks. But, the truth is, we re all susceptible to those temptations, because we do live in the world, but the Bible says we re not of the world (John17:16). So it s a matter of yes walk in the spirit and don t fulfil the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). So we have to bring our bodies under subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27). Micah 6:6-8 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? So what do we make of this? Is God pleased by sacrifice after sacrifice, late night after late night, task after task? We can overload ourselves with stuff to do that s so heavy that we could never possibly carry it ourselves and eventually get burned out. That happens. I ve seen it. I m talking about people that walked with God for many years that just said, I don t want to do it anymore. I m sick of it. I m tired. It s a real matter, because I think what happens, over time, is you just get worn down. You think, When s Christ coming back? Well, I ve got news, No man knows the day nor the hour, (Matthew 24:36) but, you know what? He might not come back in my lifetime, or your lifetime, or any of us here, but He is coming back. That s something we need to be convinced of, whether we ve seen thousands of signs or just one. Just one sign; that s all we need. We have to look at it like, You know what? I m not living my life thinking, okay I ve shared this before I have to live my life like He s coming back today, but I plan that He may not come back in this lifetime. I m not talking about making so many provisions for the flesh that we just like the Bible talks about, I ll tear down my barns and build greater. (Luke 12:18) have everything all stacked up. We have to have something. To get through this life, we have to have places to live, food to eat. We have to have those things, but, again, God loads us with daily benefits. Those are some of the things where getting back to even something like you hear the birds outside. We ll know him by the things that are made; Romans one talks about we ll know Him by the things that are made (Romans 1:19-20). Those are other things that convince us, that show us of the magnificence of God, that show us that God can change our life for the better. That s a lot of what it s all about, too.

6 There s a lot of problems out there; this country has probably, you know, one of the worst epidemics of crystal meth. I mean, we ve got violence; you saw what happened in France this past week. People are just they don t know what to do! They don t know where to turn, because if you don t turn to God, then you re turning to your own wisdom, or, Let s turn to the government, or, Let s turn to this you know? After a while, people are at their wit s end. It s one of those things where it s like, all Jesus is saying is, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give rest unto your souls. So, the other end of the spectrum, as far as from the burning out point, is we could be lackadaisical. You know, we could just have this in one ear and out the other, I don t really care kind of attitude. Well, not a care in the world; I mean, you know, these are real things and real attitudes, because, a lot of times, there is a light that we have in Christ that s about our attitude about how we are going to face the day, how we re going to face the week, how we re going to face the month. And, you know that, I don t care attitude, that s not a good place to be, but I hate to admit it, but I ve been in that boat. I don t mean I don t care about what happens in God in my life. Sometimes you feel like you re sharing with people and you re trying to convince people, and, again, being an example, being compelling, but we don t get the kind of reaction, or we don t see the kind of growth, or we don t see the explosion of growth in ministry that we think you d think that people would be flocking to the altar in times of duress, but it doesn t always happen. You know what? it doesn t mean that we take lightly somebody getting baptized; somebody s life getting better; somebody making a decision in their life to continue to serve God; somebody receiving a healing touch; somebody just talking about being thankful; or just an outing. You know, like that youth outing that people talk about. We had breakfast yesterday; it wasn t a huge gathering, and it wasn t glamorous, but it was enjoyable; it was spiritual meat for the soul. It was something that, you know, there was a lot of good interaction, and continuing to lay the groundwork, that foundation. Yes, we know that being born again, that s the start, but we have to keep building. We have to stick with it, and not give up; not ever give up. Getting back to tasks, I want to touch on that a little bit more: There are things that need to get done, but we have to understand that we can t look at our burden in God as just a series of tasks. There s people that need to be visited, people that need rides, shelter. There are times we need to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Times we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And it s in those times we minister, and it s these three principles: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Not a lot to ask. Not always easy to do, but still, it s not a lot to ask. Are we doing justly? Are we being honest with ourselves, with each other, and with God? Are we being fair with people and practicing what we preach? Are we walking humbly? I m not talking about being somebody s doormat, again, but I am talking about being modest, being friendly, and loving without strings attached. What about mercy? Not being so quick to judge and ready to put someone in the electric chair? So, a couple of us watched a movie last week, and it s quite an older movie, it s from the fifties. It s called Twelve Angry Men, has anybody ever see that in here? It s something that Alex, he d had a class that he had taken this last year, and they watched that, so he brought that over. It s basically about a man that s a youngster, I think he was eighteen years old, that his fate is being deciding by this jury. He s on trial for murdering his father. Certainly an ugly crime and I m not mincing words here for a second. Everyone on the jury is pretty sure he s guilty, except there s one lone dissenter. He s just not sure; he s got just enough reasonable doubt. It was Henry Fonda, was the dissenter, and there were a lot of other actors, and, you know, I looked up this movie, took place, I think,1955, each one of those actors there was only the twelve of them, and I think there was one scene where the actual bailiff came in but, they re all gone. They ve all passed away. Something like that And I m not going to give the rest of the story away but it just shows how important mercy is. To err on the side of mercy, and to let love be without dissimulation (Romans 12:9), love thinketh no evil (1 Corinthians 13:13). I know that there was a couple of us that were talking, and sometimes we get theories, or we get these philosophies, like, okay, well,

7 people will do this to sort of compensate for that. Brent, you and I had talked about that a little bit. Well, they re doing all these works to try to justify something else, and I was kind of, Yeah, yeah, you know, kind of stirring that pot a little bit, and I got thinking, Where am I at? Where is my head at? What about love thinketh no evil? What about let love be without dissimulation? I mean, why am I sitting there figuring, you know, you put somebody in a box Well, they re only doing this to compensate for that, or, They re doing this secretly, and they re doing this openly, to make up for that, and I m thinking, You know what? let God be the judge, and err on the side of mercy. Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I wanted to read this again to just come full circle and hope that it will sink deep down into our souls. Take My Yoke is the title of the message today, and it s part of something we need to do every day whether we ve been baptized a day, a week, a month, a year, or fifty years. I know that putting on a yoke might not sound like something that s a lot of fun and I really didn t get into the purpose of wearing of yokes today, but I imagine most of us here can envision that it s used for oxen plowing the fields. It kind of brought back some memories; when I was young, we weren t farmers, but we lived in kind of a rural area, a farmland area, and on our porch we actually had a yoke that was on the wall of the porch. It was one of those things where, you know, it was there for decoration more than anything. But those yokes do serve a purpose. Maybe not quite so much nowadays with, you know, you ve got these John Deere combines and all these other pieces of equipment. Big Country, I know he s a farmland guy, so, when I say, John Deere he definitely perks up. It s something where, it does serve a purpose. I m going to close in a moment, but, if Jesus had said, My yoke is difficult, and my burden is heavy, how many would still want to follow Him? I m talking about, of the few that already do, probably that many less. Really, the truth of the matter is, when we really look at it from a Christianity standpoint of knowing God and understanding that it s free will. God s will is that none would perish, but that all would come to the knowledge of the Truth (2 Peter 3:9). God s will is that everybody would be saved, but that s not going to happen. It s not up to me to judge, but we do have to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24), so I m not I want to back up just a step by saying this, that there is doctrine, there is sound doctrine, there are clear things where it cut-and-dried separates the saved from the lost that can be proven biblically. It s not a free-for-all; it s not just, Oh, anybody who just says Jesus, there all okay. That s not the case. The Bible also talks about the devils also believe and tremble (James 2:19). So, it is a matter of looking at it like there s more to do than just, I ve got to believe. You do have to believe, but there is a part of living for God. There is a light that God wants to have us to shine that s going to be pleasing to Him but it s also going to be pleasing to us. If we please God, I think we re going to be pretty pleased ourselves, especially in the long run. But, no, it s not an easy world to live in, and one last point I recall from last week is that sometimes the situations we face are greater than we think we can handle. Sometimes we do get backed up against the wall, or financial distress, or health, or whatever other condition, and sometimes these things seem relentless. It seems unfair, and I think life, in a lot of ways, is unfair, but God is fair. God s Word says that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men (Titus 2:11). So, everybody gets a chance. I suppose that there might be a lot of people that might think, No, what about all these other people? What about me? What about you? I m not going to sit there and excuse myself out of the picture because I think somebody in well, just pick a country that somebody might think, Well, that s undeveloped, they re uncivilized; they haven t heard the Word of God. Well how do I know whether they have or they haven t? because I m quite sure they have. But that s why we need to look to the author and finisher of our faith, and to trust in the Lord with all our heart, and look to the hills from where comes

8 our help, it comes from God (Psalms 121:1). Jesus said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light and in so doing we will find rest to our souls. Thank you for your time. God bless you.